5 min readTamil NaduApr 16, 2024 11:53 AM IST
First published on: Apr 8, 2024 at 05:02 PM IST
Is the BJP trying to pick up the thread that Kamaraj lost? The legendary Congressman was the last non-Dravidian electoral icon in the state. Barring the very few in their late seventies, most Tamil voters wouldn’t remember him. After the debacle in the 1967 Assembly polls where he himself lost, the Tamil Nadu Congress hasn’t seen a matching vote catcher so far.
Since then, the state has been exercising its choice between the Dravidian parties or their alliances. Also every time, even in the heydays of Indira Gandhi, the campaign for even the Lok Sabha polls has been led by a regional satrap — C N Annadurai, M Karunanidhi, M G Ramachandran, J Jayalalithaa, and now M K Stalin. Would this pattern get disrupted?
Annamalai campaigning at Palladam in Coimbatore constituency. (Sketch by E P Unny)
This time, there is a second national party in the picture and it is going for broke. With no significant regional alliance to speak of, the BJP is projecting a new solo flier as leader, K Annamalai, its state unit president. Just into his fourth year in politics, having joined the BJP in 2020 after quitting the IPS, he has no political baggage – a big plus in a state that has seen far too many shifty moves after Jayalalitha’s death in 2016. Forget voters, even analysts can’t keep track of the party hoppers.
On June 4, when votes are counted, Annamalai would turn 40 and “we’ll party and party”, say a band of smart phone-wielding young fans clad uniformly in white shirt and jaded jeans. Those in the audience at the campaign site in Palladam (one of the Assembly segments of the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency) unlikely to be into YouTube or Instagram, would be unaware of Annamalai’s digital presence. They could almost miss him in the passing roadshow. He might appear more like the customary aide beside the neta, not the neta himself. When the show stops to let him address the roadside crowds, that is when Annamalai leaps into focus. He speaks without pause, gesticulating all the time.
Vote shares of different political parties in the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency
He says the Stalin sarkar is doing nothing but relabelling the Modi government’s giveaways as its own. The central schemes are repackaged and resold here, he charges. “Look at the next 25 years. We have had enough of the Dravidian rule. There is all round collapse of governance from economy to law and order.”
His policing background comes into play when he talks about the “widespread ganja” peddling. “I won’t hesitate to go back to my police uniform to catch the culprits.”
BJP workers preparing for Annamalai’s roadshow. (Sketch by E P Unny)
The rehearsed short points are reeled off to emphasise that the southern state needs more than a firm alliance, a perfect pairing with Delhi. There is a new series of off-beat poll posters that echo this sentiment. A clear departure from the mandatory group photos of national, regional leaders and long-departed luminaries, this uncrowded pictorial version frames just PM Modi and Candidate Annamalai in symmetric visual sync. With two figures thirty years apart looking distinctly dissimilar, only Photoshop can achieve such graphic parity.
The poll package, according to campaign managers, is designed to appeal to youth, seen as Annamalai’s core constituency. Little wonder that he keeps appealing to the school-goers, college-goers and job-seekers to swing parental votes.
Ganapati Rajaram, DMK candidate, campaigning at Avarampalayam in Coimbatore constituency. (Sketch by E P Unny)
More time-tested voter segments are being wooed in the opposite camps. For once the main rivals, the ruling DMK and the principal Opposition AIADMK, seem equally eager to go after Annamalai. The latter hasn’t pardoned the newcomer for scuttling its alliance with the BJP. So this triangular contest in Coimbatore need not split votes in favour of Annamalai. The AIADMK has fielded Singai G Ramachandran from the seat.
The DMK camp is however not taking any chances. The party takes its allies seriously. So, when its candidate Ganapati P Rajkumar passed through Avarampalayam, the allies responded, vying with each other to drown him in ponnadais (shawls). In a narrow suburban lane, the CPI, CPM and Congress have local offices next to each other. The area looks like a friendly neighbourhood older than the INDIA bloc.
In the 2019 polls, the DMK-backed CPM candidate P R Natarajan had trounced the BJP’s C P Radhakrishnan by about 1.8 lakh votes in the constituency.
BJP's Tamil Nadu president and Coimbatore candidate K Annamalai. (Photo: K Annamalai/ X) 
Annamalai campaigning at Palladam in Coimbatore constituency. (Sketch by E P Unny)
Vote shares of different political parties in the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency
BJP workers preparing for Annamalai’s roadshow. (Sketch by E P Unny)
Ganapati Rajaram, DMK candidate, campaigning at Avarampalayam in Coimbatore constituency. (Sketch by E P Unny)
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